


Do Not Drink of This Brook

by calloftheocean, D20Owlbear



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Art, Aziraphale does not hunt animals, Book canon compliant, Canon - Book, Crowley is a deer, Cursed Deer Facts Every Chapter!!!, Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang, Gen, Grimms Fairy Tale, Inspired by Art, M/M, but they do love each other it's just all very complicated, deers are fucking cursed man ok, heavily based to a degree on Enchanted Stag the Grimm Fairy Tale, mainly for food and questing, no funny business tho is what i mean, predominantly platonic as one of them is a deer, the graphic depictions of violence is to be on the safe side, there will be blood and animals being hunted, very minor romantic leanings, whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calloftheocean/pseuds/calloftheocean, https://archiveofourown.org/users/D20Owlbear/pseuds/D20Owlbear
Summary: Crowley catches himself running from a lake where he'd accidentally caught sight of Morganna and she justhadto pull an Artemis on him, didn't she?! (Luckily he had no hunting dogs.)Unfortunately for him, he's abandoned by a parent-figure all over again, butdoeshave the luck to find Aziraphale rather quickly! A knight of King Uther Pendragon and set to be play guide in a court inherited by Arthur, Aziraphale's plans quickly go awry when he's exiled for the good of the kingdom after word gets around about the deer stubbornly following him...Crowley does his best to communicate with Aziraphale and, eventually, they simply make the best of living together in a cosy, little cottage out in the woods; opening up along the way about things they'd never thought to share with the other.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so much to calloftheocean! Their work was fully the inspiration for this story and collabing with them has been a delight, I'm so happy to become your friend!!
> 
> Please go see their work on [tumblr](http://call-of-the-ocean.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/call_oftheocean) at the same username!!
> 
> Also, I have all of this planned (though not all of it written yet) and plan to update every 2-3 weeks. Thank you <3

Crowley leaned against a tree, breathing heavily. He hadn’t intended to bloody find _Morganna_! Of all people to walk in on, an awkward situation to be sure, never making eye contact and the like, all of that Crowley could handle, it’d be excruciatingly embarrassing but bloody hell at least it wouldn’t have been _Morganna Le Fucking Fay_ of all people…

He’d squeaked in surprise —not that he’d ever admit to it— she’d shrieked and then yelled at him about it and here he was off running away from a lake in the middle of the woods, forgot his whole horse about it too, just went and legged it in heavy armor. Something had hit his back just before he made it to the treeline though, and even though he’d kept on with said running he could feel the magic of it as it slid down his back like a shattered egg over his spine, even through the layers of his armor.

After a quick breather —though he didn’t specifically need to breathe it was a hard habit to break from once you’d gotten a corporation used to it— Crowley started to frantically unbuckle his breastplate. It might only be on his armor, he reasoned to himself hopefully. Maybe it wouldn't have any adverse affect on him.

Truly, it was a testament to him not being human at all that likely was causing such a delayed reaction to the magic, for how awfully thick and slimy it felt. He’d been hit by magic lobbed at him plenty. Usually the things meant for human targets, if he was mistaken for one, slid off him entirely or were less effective. On rare occasions the stronger magicians —like Morganna _bloody_ Le Fay— would power through whatever sort of natural defenses a demon had against human magics —which were ultimately diluted forms of celestial and occult magics a la Nephilim, cambion, and the like.

When all his armor had been removed, including the chain and gambeson underneath the plate, and the eggy feeling down his back persisted, he had a sinking feeling this was one of those times.

“Bloody _fucking_ cambions!” Crowley hissed and pulled up a handful of power from hell to at least cover his tracks from Morganna following him, or setting dogs on him or _something_ like a damned Artemis knock-off she might as well have been. Her magic had clearly been hell-attuned, but it wouldn’t be pure enough in either hellish or earthly magics to break through his cloaking, even if it had slipped past his innate magical immunity.

Crowley had been experimenting with sleep, he had been for some time now, but he’d never really felt the pull of it like this before. Suddenly, the thought of the curse on his back was far away and all he wanted to do was lay down and nap, yeah, that sounded about right.

A nap would be good, it’d be amazing really, after the day he’d had. Eventually he’d tell Aziraphale all about it, once he got over his snit fit about slacking off…

But for now, Crowley’s eyes fluttered shut and he made a bed of perfectly soft grasses at the base of a tree, surrounded by discarded parts of his armor, clad in little more than a tunic, his braies, and his stockings, with nary a belt to his name.

That’d be fine, though. Aziraphale would think it was funny, Crowley was sure…

Crowley laid down with his head pillowed on his arms and his legs curled up for warmth, gangly thing that he was, and the dust of starstuff millennia-old trapped under his skin jostled and woke. The pale summation of all the colors the universe was made of crept up through Crowley's fingertips and the corners of his eyes and underneath his arms and legs. Crowley's hair lost all the rest of its wine-dark color as he slept beneath a large oak tree, and his skin was overtaken as well, the pale spots of skin where no freckles encroached upon grew steadily larger. The small white specks of stardust spread over all his body until Crowley faded with a blink.


	2. Chapter 2

Eight months later, a dark red hind shuffled through the underbrush. She stepped carefully over a few fallen logs and skirted around anything she’d need to jump over, nervously pacing to find the perfect place to birth her first baby. Her red coat shone in the early summer sun and her belly was rounded and full with life ready to burst from her. 

Her legs were steady and she was ready, any day now, any moment… but there was something that made her uneasy. She had not birthed a fawn before, she did not know what it was meant to feel like, but some instinctual part of her that was her mother and her grandmother and all those hinds before her buried into her bones screamed warnings about what she carried. It felt _wrong._

Night fell and the sun rose again, the hind remained in the clearing and grazed along the edge of the trees. It felt like she should be here, for all that the lumps of things she could not identify just under a tree reminded her of the _wrong_ in her belly. Deer did not love their young, not in the way some think of love. They cared for them until they were grown enough to fend for themselves and a little beyond that, and they were upset if the child of their flesh was taken from them. Deer bonded with their fawns as they grew; they learned the natures of their children and that became love between creatures, but it was nothing more than instinctual at first, to go and eat, then return to nourish the fruits of their labors. 

The sun dipped beyond the horizon once more, and the hind was alone. She often was, recently, as the _wrong_ in her belly grew and she was left on the outskirts of her herd. Even the stag who had conceived it in her did not care for it. But no matter how far she walked or how far she strayed from her herd, she could not leave the _wrong_ behind.

Now, on the third day she lay and grazed in the clearing, it happened that she gave birth. The _wrong_ fled from her belly and fell to the grass, and the hind was struck still with fear. She licked the newborn clean, as her instincts demanded, freeing her from the panic-terror predators brought when they hunted for just a moment. _Wrong’s_ pelt was fully white and stuck up with her spit, its ears and nose were pink like wildflowers in the dawn, and its eyes were the same silver as the moon on the water, and it terrified the hind. 

She reared back after it looked at her, and then she left. _Wrong_ would stay, it would have to, it could not walk yet. And she could finally walk enough to leave _Wrong_ far behind.

* * *

The fawn’s eyes are open the moment he’s birthed, and wasn’t _that_ an unpleasant feeling. Just a whole continuation of that disgusting eggy feeling of Morganna’s magics, and then a rough tongue licked it off his face in a way that’d make Crowley grimace if he had lips to show his displeasure with. But then he was left alone again, the rough tongue and the creature it had belonged to had gone, and Crowley had never felt this alone before. Whatever senses he had as a demon that followed him into human-shape and snake-shape and beyond were cut off from him like this. 

Sure, he had his mind, he could think, but whatever this terrifyingly delicate shape he’d been shoved into had no way to cast out his consciousness. He couldn’t find any other creature on this earth, none at all, even though he could hear them in the trees and the chittering of small animals in the brush. It was… it was terrifying, whatever fourth-dimensional eye or whatever he’d had before was gone and…

And Crowley was alone. 

The grief built up in his chest like a physical force and he sobbed, still curled up in the tall, unruly grasses he’d been left in only for it to come out insultingly cute. The high-pitched bleat that sounded like angry, squeaky hinges on a tiny door was personally insulting. Crowley would give anything to growl, to sound angry and as upset as he was at the injustice. He was cut off! _Again!_ He had been left and abandoned and cast out all over again and he was left even more vulnerable than he had been even in the Great Pit. At least there his wailing and gnashing of teeth wasn’t _cute_ , at least _there_ he had been surrounded by the six-hundred sixty-five others who had been cast out and clawing their way out of burning sulphur and agony. 

At least there… at least there he hadn’t actually been _alone_. 

Crowley tried to stand and cursed in the privacy of his own mind, chomping down on any little squeaky cries that slipped out of his mouth, at how wobbly his legs were. He wasn’t even this bad when he’d first tried legs at all! But he grit his teeth, took a step– 

And then fell. Face first, right into the grass again, barely a half-step away from where he’d spent all of the last five minutes trying to stand up at all! Crowley sighed, shoved himself up to stand, and ducked his head to glare at his wobbly little knees. 

“You’ve got no right to be this cute!” Crowley peeped angrily, unable to form real words with this animal throat and mouth, the tongue wasn’t suited to it at all; it felt heavy and entirely too clumsy to ever form proper words. It really only compounded the indignity of the matter! He was a grown demon, damnit! He shouldn’t be _squeaking_. Crowley shuddered to think what would happen to him if anyone from Hell stumbled across him like this. 

His ear flicked back in annoyance at a sound behind him and the interruption made him stumble again. With a meepy little growl his new form couldn’t manage in the first place, he looked over his shoulder and shoved himself up again, behind two legs first and then a stumble back to get his front feet underneath him properly. 

A loud, mewing noise left Crowley’s mouth and he couldn’t help the utterly deer-ish instincts to jump for joy when he realized it was Aziraphale! Aziraphale! He was here! He must have known Crowley was in trouble!

The look of concentration on Aziraphale’s face was broken by a soft, long-suffering smile, the kind the angel wore whenever there were animals drawn to him and he felt he ought to sit still enough for them to come over and slobber on his clothing. He might be years out of date fashion-wise, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love his clothes… Too overjoyed to read into the look much, Crowley stumbled steadily towards Aziraphale, mewing and cheeping embarrassingly and utterly unable to hold it in at all for the joy that overcame his little fawn heart. 

Crowley finally managed to get his legs working, mostly, by the time he’d made it to Azirpahale, who had seemed to lose the ever-suffering look and instead smiled softly. His dark brown hair curled around his face and the gold streaks that had grown more prominent throughout the years, as if his body truly aged and turned gold instead of silver, framed his smile. Crowley would have gasped, if he’d been in a human shape, would have fallen to his knees or maybe stared open-mouthed and dumb at the sheer affection in Aziraphale’s visage. 

He didn’t do any of those things, of course, because he was a god-forsaken (doe-forsaken, mum-forsaken) deer! He may have wobbled about the knees, but that was just how these things went, can’t blame him, really. Aziraphale stood still and Crowley took another trembling step forward until the side of his face (or was it a muzzle? Whatever, his skull was called) collided with Aziraphale’s thigh, just above his knee, and the rough fabric of his outerwear felt pleasant on Crowley’s still-new skin.

“Oh am I glad to see you!” Crowley attempted to say, though little bleats and cheeps came out instead in a cadence as near to speech as he could manage. 

“There, there, little one,” Aziraphale murmured and squinched his face a bit upon realizing that Crowley was still covered in goop not fully cleaned off him. “Eughk… well, then, I suppose, your mother ought to be somewhere, hm? Odd she didn’t come earlier when you called, isn’t it?” Crowley tried to reply back angrily to cover the annoyance of _not being listened to, damnit angel, this isn’t funny!_

Aziraphale took a step back, away from Crowley, and he fell without his angel’s support. Aziraphale did his best to cover a laugh with a coo, but Crowley knew that bastard better! He shoved himself back to his feet and yelled at Aziraphale to _listen! And also slow down damnit, I’ve got four wobbly feet now!_

Aziraphale did _not_ listen and Crowley vowed to dog his heels until he did. And that’s exactly how he ended up being carried by an irritable Aziraphale directly into the heart of a temporary camping ground set up for a slew of the knights of Camelot.

“Sir Aziraphale!” A young boy greeted happily, joyful and cheery in a way that made Crowley long for the days of Turkish coffee and the goddamned right mouth to drink it with. “You brought dinner!”

Crowley made desperate squeaky noises and wiggled violently as he could in Aziraphale’s arms to let him know just _how_ upsetting that was! Aziraphale nearly dropped him ( _Don’t you dare, angel!_ ) but held on long enough to sigh heavily and set him down.

“No, no, sorry Bedeviere, it’s far too young for that! But it wouldn’t leave me alone and, well, I didn’t see its mother anywhere…” Aziraphale sighed again and ran a hand over his face and then through his hair, scrunching his curls in his hand just like he did when he was worried or anxious. Crowley made a small sound and rubbed his face on the back of Aziraphale’s leg. He hadn’t meant to worry him, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it was there? Damned witches in their bloody lakes!

Aziraphale walked off and Crowley did his best to totter along behind him, meeping loudly whenever Aziraphale went too fast for him. 

Aziraphale, for his part, was waylaid by quite a few knights and their squires and asked all manner of questions about the all-white fawn following him. A few of them knelt and attempted to reach for Crowley, but he wasn't going to be having any of that! He skittered out of the way easily enough, only tripping himself over his legs once and into the back of Aziraphale's knees, but that was alright, Aziraphale picked him up after that and carried him again. It was nice, somehow, to be wrapped up in Aziraphale's arms like the angel didn't care after all that he was a demon… 

Days passed like this. Crowley grew hungry at the most inconvenient times, having to bleat to be fed and hating every moment of it. He cursed at Aziraphale for handing him over to the goat-mothers nearby in their pen and making him act like a _real_ deer, but then Aziraphale came and pet his nose up to his forehead and between his ears, scratching his head in the most perfect way. Crowley had always been a sucker for a good scratch, human-shaped or no, but it really rankled that Aziraphale could be forgiven so quickly for the ignominy.

But, then Aziraphale did things like picking Crowley up when he yelled at being left behind when the angel walked too fast, or held him fast in his lap on his horse’s back when he had trouble keeping up from walking all day. The camp was moving and no matter how often he asked about it, Aziraphale wouldn’t deign to tell him about it. So, Crowley forced himself into a sort of patience. It wasn’t really patience, because he was a _demon_ , obviously, but a good facsimile. The kind that a hunter has until its prey was caught in a trap rather than the kind good-natured saints have. Obviously. 

Slowly, Crowley grew, got a bit taller, a little ganglier in the knees, but surer footed and able to walk and keep up for longer and longer. Which was good, because as he grew, being hefted onto horseback by Aziraphale was getting more and more uncomfortable. Deer were certainly not meant to lay across the saddle the way Aziraphale held him… but he couldn't really complain. Well, he _could_ , and he did, but the way Aziraphale touched his sides and his shoulders and wrapped his arms around Crowley’s legs was… nice. It felt safe in a way he couldn’t say he was used to.

So on and so forth, the days went, stopping every so often to camp for a day or a week, and Crowley being kept from following Aziraphale out by his pesky little squire. (Crowley bit the boy’s fingers whenever he could manage, and certainly never at all had fun chasing the boy across the hillocks while the squire laughed and tripped and was sat on by a deer nibbling at the collar of his shirt. Absolutely not once at all. Though he might have felt just a little vindicated about it the one time Aziraphale couldn’t hold in his laughter at the way the boy sheepishly explained being knocked into a particularly goopy mud puddle by a baby deer…)

But then, one day, it was different. Aziraphale was handed a letter by a man who came riding up on horseback and frowned. A few men around him muttered when Aziraphale passed over the note for them to read and dismounted from his horse. He sighed heavily and Crowley tottered up to nudge Aziraphale’s hand until it flopped onto the top of his head between his ears and Aziraphale smiled a little again. 

“Oh, it’s alright, my deer.” Aziraphale’s lips quirked up at the endearment, "Simply… how things go, sometimes. The will of the Almighty is ineffable, and I'm sure there is reason enough in the King's decision."

All the rest of the knights gathered round Aziraphale and patted his shoulders and his squire dismounted to hug Aziraphale round the waist until the boy made himself cry before being hugged back by the angel. 

"Do not fear, my boy," Aziraphale murmured, "It's not as if your brother or Bors won't squire you, you've proven yourself very well and they'll scramble to have you I'm sure of it! And you can come find me, send me letters, if you like. I won't be gone forever, you know. It's only a quest, my dear, only a quest…"

Armed with his saddlebags thrown over his shoulders, his cloak bundled up and deposited on Crowley's back, and a goat to come along with them, Aziraphale and Crowley departed from the rest of the knights and made their way back the way they came from. 

"Angel?" Crowley asked after a few moments, because at least now they were gone Aziraphale might talk to him with no one to overhear, "Where are we going?"

Aziraphale said nothing, so Crowley stayed quiet once more until his stomach gnawed at him for a break to graze a little and drink goat milk. It was humiliating, the way Aziraphale watched him, but he didn't tease so Crowley tried not to think of it much. At least this way there weren't scores of knights from Aziraphale's side watching him too. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are very much loved and I promise I will answer all comments as soon as I can (unless you would like me not to)! I do ask that if you comment, please also take a moment to appreciate the art that very much began this story, without which this would not exist!
> 
> As always, please come talk to me or send me asks or @s, I love to see them if you're inclined!
> 
> My Twitter: <https://twitter.com/Great_Ass_aFire>  
> My Tumblr: <https://d20owlbear.tumblr.com/>
> 
> And if you like what I write, please think about supporting me, links in my pinned Tumblr post about how to do so!
> 
> Remember, Call's [tumblr](http://call-of-the-ocean.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/call_oftheocean) are at the same username!! ;)


End file.
